Halperin: Why not in the first year, if you're elected — why not in 2013, go all the way and propose the kind of budget with spending restraints, that you'd like to see after four years in office? Why not do it more quickly?

Romney: Well because, if you take a trillion dollars for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5%. That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression. S o I'm not going to do that, of course. [emphasis mine]

It couldn't be clearer: Mitt Romney believes that a large cuts to federal outlays will throw us into a recession or depression.

It is a repudiation of the Tea Party style thinking that you can grow the economy by cutting.

Our own Joe Weisenthal has been arguing fiercely that Romney has always understood this and would not fall for the Tea-Party idea that you can cut your way to prosperity, that austerity will unleash growth.